Abstract:
Despite their widespread popularity and rapid growth, the Internet-mediated English educational materials for learners of English as a foreign/second language (FL/SL) have rarely been analyzed in terms of their potential hidden curriculum. Accordingly, the present study aims to address this need through conducting a CDA investigation into some lessons which are randomly selected from an English educational website called “Englishcentral.” Adapting, expanding, and adopting some elements of Van Leeuwen’s (2008) Social Actor Network, the researchers attempt to describe and explain the representation of “Iran” in Englishcentral. Investigating and thematizing the research data revealed that the keyword “Iran” was used in this website to refer to three groups of social actors, namely the Iranian government and officials, Iranian people, and Iranian people and/or government/officials. The way these social actors are associated and dissociated, activated and passivated, personalized and impersonalized creates remarkable findings which give support to the presence of particular hidden agenda in this program. In all, the results of this study reveal that the Iranian social actors are portrayed unfavorably in Englishcentral, which is an alleged English educational program.
Machine summary:
Susan Marandi Assistant Professor of TEFL, Alzahra University, Tehran, Iran Received 21 November 2013; revised 16 February 2014; accepted 23 February 2014 Abstract Despite their widespread popularity and rapid growth, the Internet-mediated English educational materials for learners of English as a foreign/second language (FL/SL) have rarely been analyzed in terms of their potential hidden curriculum.
Key words: Hidden Curriculum; Critical Discourse Analysis; Van Leeuwen’sSocial Actor Network; Iran; Englishcentral; English Language Teaching (ELT) Introduction Developing educational materials for learners of English as a foreign/second language is a complicated job demanding high levels of professional knowledge and experience, recognition of learners’ needs and wants, and awareness of both English and the source value system.
In fact, the ELT literature is extensive with regard to critical issues related to traditional coursebooks such as propagating the US family and social values as well as its social order as represented in American English coursebooks (Arkian, 2008; Gray, 2000; Holme, 2003), the threat of English coursebooks for learners’ indigenous cultures ( Ehrensal, 2001; Spring, 2009), English learners’ frustration due to incongruity between the English culture and their indigenous value system and life style (Brown, 2001; Canagarajah, 1999; Sadeghy, 2008), and consequently the recognition of the need for including indigenous culture (Adaskou, Britten, & Fahsi, 1990; Chen, Eslami, & Shin, 2011; Cortazzi & Jin, 1999; McKay, 2003) or international culture (Bashir, 2011; Cortazzi & Jin, 1999; Kiss & Weninger, 2013; McKay, 2003; Naji & Pishghadam, 2012) in English textbooks.